Sessional_Paper_1905 — Page 444

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This is important when the resistence to heat of the bacillus pestis is re- membered.

It is difficult to suppose that the Chinese cooked food that one sees in every house has not been raised to a temperature of 65° C. for at least fifteen minutes which would be sufficient to kill the plague bacillus.

Before any definite statement of belief in the gastro-intestinal theory of infec- tion was made, experiments should have been made with the newly cooked meals from a Chinese house for the purpose of bacteriological analysis.

No such experiments are recorded in the report of the Government Bacteriolo- gist in which he so strongly emphasizes the opinion that the gastro-intestinal tract is the chief channel of infection.

An important point is raised by Professor SIMPSON in connection with plague in pigs and other animals (op. cit., page 100). He states that he found the incuba- tion period to be sometimes over a month in pigs and occasionally so in sheep, calves, turkeys, ducks and geese.

This, he suggests, may cause the fact of their being infected so be overlooked when being slaughtered for food.

Professor SIMPSON, however, omits to state that the chances of a secondary infection in the animals with which he experimented were by no means without the bounds of possibility.

When it is remembered that these experiments were conducted in a large shed without sub-divisions, that there were present numbers of animals in various states of health and sickness, that the post-mortem examinations were done in the same room in which the animals were kept, the microscopic examinations made and notes recorded, and that there was a continuous walking to and fro in the shed of several people, the observation of such a long incubation period loses the significance he would attach to it.

The animal depôts and slaughter-houses in Hongkong are well appointed. All cattle, sheep, pigs and goats for human food must by law be slaughtered in the Government Slaughter-houses. This department is controlled by a qualified Veteri- nary Surgeon and an efficient staff. Although there may be pig's flesh sold for food in the outskirts of Kowloon and the villages in Hongkong which has not passed through the Government Slaughter-house, the chances that this obtains to an ap- preciable amount in the City of Victoria are remote. Despite the observation of Professor SIMPSON on the incubation period of plague in some animals it is then not probable that flesh from infected cattle or pigs find its way into the markets in Victoria.

Poultry, however, are on a different footing. There is no restriction as to the place of killing a fowl or duck. Indeed fowls may be seen running about the streets in the poorer residential quarters of the Colony. If it is decided to kill a fowl, it is done in the kitchen of the house, and fowls are sometimes bought alive at a market and killed at home.

There is no doubt, however, that many fowls brought into the markets of the Colony die en route or after arrival. Those at any rate which die after arrival are probably sold at a reduced rate and used as food. They are of course cooked, but nevertheless it is important to find out whether these fowls are infected with plague.

The known fact that poultry are subject to a septicemic disease called "chicken cholera" caused by an organism so much resembling the bacillus pestis on microscopical examination made it necessary to have this disease excluded be- fore a diagnosis of plague could be made. The Government Bacteriologist on being requested to examine poultry sent him from markets in the Colony informed the Sanitary Department that some had died from "chicken cholera" and some from plague.

Noticing a report in a newspaper sent me from the Colony of Mauritius to the effect that a considerable mortality amongst fowls had taken place in the town of Port Louis I communicated with Dr. LORANS, the Director of the Medical and